English as an Additional Language (EAL)

At Level A1 students communicate in basic English in routine, familiar, social and classroom situations. They follow and give simple instructions, exchange basic personal information, and negotiate well-known, predictable activities and contexts. They begin to modify their responses and manner of interaction to match the responses of others and the context. They use simple learnt formulas and patterns, and they create original utterances by substituting words. Their utterances are characterised by a short simplified structure, simple subject–verb–object construction and overgeneralisation of rules. They use some basic communication and learning strategies to participate in and sustain interactions in English. They recognise that intonation carries meaning, and they...

At Level A1 students communicate in basic English in routine, familiar, social and classroom situations. They follow and give simple instructions, exchange basic personal information, and negotiate well-known, predictable activities and contexts. They begin to modify their responses and manner of interaction to match the responses of others and the context. They use simple learnt formulas and patterns, and they create original utterances by substituting words. Their utterances are characterised by a short simplified structure, simple subject–verb–object construction and overgeneralisation of rules. They use some basic communication and learning strategies to participate in and sustain interactions in English. They recognise that intonation carries meaning, and they listen for key words and for repetition of words and phrases. They use comprehensible pronunciation, stress and intonation. They use classroom resources such as picture cards or other visual texts to help them communicate.

At Level A1 students read and engage with a wide range of short, simple, repetitive texts, including shared recounts and fictional and everyday texts. These texts may be in print or visual form.

Students read in context some familiar words, phrases, numbers and signs. They complete simple, structured activities such as sequencing sentences and pictures. They show early understanding that texts are written and structured for a variety of purposes. They recognise some common letters and letter patterns. They name some letters of the alphabet and know the sounds commonly related to some letters and letter groups. They recognise some basic features of texts, including text directionality and page order, and understand the function of titles and images. They hold and manipulate books appropriately. When listening to texts read aloud, they listen for key words and for repetition of words and phrases. They focus on images and other visual features that assist them to understand texts.

At Level A1 students communicate their ideas and experiences simply through drawings, copied writing, dictated texts and their own basic writing, showing evidence of a developing understanding of the writing process. They contribute to shared writing activities. They demonstrate an early awareness that written texts in English are presented through conventions, which change according to context and purpose. They write and draw for basic purposes and, with support, produce simple descriptions, recounts and procedures. Students’ writing reflects their oral structures, and they link ideas using basic conjunctions. They show awareness of the need for basic punctuation. They demonstrate knowledge of some sound–symbol relationships, and show evidence of some basic planning. They model their writing on shared writing activities and published texts, often copying words or phrases from books or word lists. They form letters and place text appropriately on the page. They use basic features of software applications to write and present their texts.

At Level A2 students communicate in an expanding range of predictable social and learning situations. They express ideas and identify key points of information in classroom discussions about familiar topics, and in new topics when they are well supported by visual material, an appropriate pace of delivery, and discussion that links their prior knowledge to the new context. They follow a short sequence of instructions related to classroom procedures and learning activities. They negotiate familiar social and learning situations, using English appropriate to the situation. They adjust their speech choices in response to audience and topic. They combine known conversational formulas and vocabulary, including some from texts read in class, and apply some grammatical...

At Level A2 students communicate in an expanding range of predictable social and learning situations. They express ideas and identify key points of information in classroom discussions about familiar topics, and in new topics when they are well supported by visual material, an appropriate pace of delivery, and discussion that links their prior knowledge to the new context. They follow a short sequence of instructions related to classroom procedures and learning activities. They negotiate familiar social and learning situations, using English appropriate to the situation. They adjust their speech choices in response to audience and topic. They combine known conversational formulas and vocabulary, including some from texts read in class, and apply some grammatical rules to make original utterances of varying grammatical accuracy. They sustain communication by negotiating turn-taking and by using strategies such as asking a speaker to repeat or to speak slowly, or asking what a word means.

At Level A2 students read and respond to a wide range of familiar texts. These texts may be print or digital texts, including visual, multimodal or interactive texts.

Students predict, ask questions, retell and talk about texts read and viewed in class. With support, they read a range of topic-related classroom texts. They can read familiar texts with some fluency. They read back their own writing or own sentences recorded by another. They use texts purposefully, following simple procedural texts and finding basic information in texts. They discuss simply the events in texts and characters’ feelings and actions. They identify the purposes of familiar text types including classroom texts, simple stories and factual texts. They use their developing knowledge of context, sound–symbol relationships, word patterns and text structure to read simple familiar and unfamiliar texts. They interpret simple images and identify the layout of a range of text types.

At Level A2 students communicate ideas, events and experiences through simple texts based on familiar spoken and written language. They write for a variety of personal and classroom purposes, using known and modelled structures and features. They write everyday texts and simple stories, recounts and factual texts based on their own and shared class experiences. They use their developing oral base and reading repertoire when writing their own texts. They write texts using simple but coherently linked sentences, basic structures and well-known vocabulary. They use some common irregular past tense verbs correctly, and link clauses using basic conjunctions and connectives. They attempt to spell new words, based on known spelling patterns and base words. They use vocabulary lists, modelled texts and familiar books to find how to write new words. They write letters legibly and make some changes to their texts when editing. They use advanced features of software applications to write and present their texts.